Air passengers back ‘fat tax’
The majority of international travellers are in favour of airlines introducing a so-called ‘fat tax’ for overweight passengers, a new survey has found.
Travel search site Skyscanner, which quizzed 1,000 users, found that 59% of respondents would be in favour of airlines charging higher fares to obese or overweight passengers. The remaining 41% of travellers said that such a tax would be unfair as it would discriminate against overweight passengers.
“The so-called ‘fat tax’ is a highly sensitive issue for airlines who clearly don’t want to cause offence to their larger passengers. However we were surprised to see that among the general public, there is a significant majority who would welcome a tiered pricing for passengers depending on their weight,” said Skyscanner’s Sam Poullain.
The poll follows a comment by Norwegian economist Dr Bharat P. Bhatta, who suggested that a pricing model based on passengers’ weight could bring cheaper fares to more customers and help reduce carbon emissions. Samoa Air is the only airline in the world that currently operates a cost-per-kilo fare structure.